Czytaj książkę: «On This Day»
COPYRIGHT
Published by Times Books
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Westerhill Road
Bishopbriggs
Glasgow G64 2QT
First edition 2018
© This compilation Times Newspapers Ltd 2018
The Times® is a registered trademark of Times Newspapers Ltd
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The contents of this publication are believed correct at the time of printing. Nevertheless the publisher can accept no responsibility for errors or omissions, changes in the detail given or for any expense or loss thereby caused.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image © ShabbyPie / Shutterstock
My thanks and acknowledgements go to Lily Cox and Robin Ashton at News Syndication and, in particular, at The Times, Ian Brunskill and, at HarperCollins, Gerry Breslin, Jethro Lennox, Karen Midgley, Kerry Ferguson, Sarah Woods and Evelyn Sword.
eBook Edition © October 2018
ISBN 9780008317416
Version: 2020-08-26
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
1 January
2 January
3 January
4 January
5 January
6 January
7 January
8 January
9 January
10 January
11 January
12 January
13 January
14 January
15 January
16 January
17 January
18 January
19 January
20 January
21 January
22 January
23 January
24 January
25 January
26 January
27 January
28 January
29 January
30 January
31 January
1 February
2 February
3 February
4 February
5 February
6 February
7 February
8 February
9 February
10 February
11 February
12 February
13 February
14 February
15 February
16 February
17 February
18 February
19 February
20 February
21 February
22 February
23 February
24 February
25 February
26 February
27 February
28 February
29 February
1 March
2 March
3 March
4 March
5 March
6 March
7 March
8 March
9 March
10 March
11 March
12 March
13 March
14 March
15 March
16 March
17 March
18 March
19 March
20 March
21 March
22 March
23 March
24 March
25 March
26 March
27 March
28 March
29 March
30 March
31 March
1 April
2 April
3 April
4 April
5 April
6 April
7 April
8 April
9 April
10 April
11 April
12 April
13 April
14 April
15 April
16 April
17 April
18 April
19 April
20 April
21 April
22 April
23 April
24 April
25 April
26 April
27 April
28 April
29 April
30 April
1 May
2 May
3 May
4 May
5 May
6 May
7 May
8 May
9 May
10 May
11 May
12 May
13 May
14 May
15 May
16 May
17 May
18 May
19 May
20 May
21 May
22 May
23 May
24 May
25 May
26 May
27 May
28 May
29 May
30 May
31 May
1 June
2 June
3 June
4 June
5 June
6 June
7 June
8 June
9 June
10 June
11 June
12 June
13 June
14 June
15 June
16 June
17 June
18 June
19 June
20 June
21 June
22 June
23 June
24 June
25 June
26 June
27 June
28 June
29 June
30 June
1 July
2 July
3 July
4 July
5 July
6 July
7 July
8 July
9 July
10 July
11 July
12 July
13 July
14 July
15 July
16 July
17 July
18 July
19 July
20 July
21 July
22 July
23 July
24 July
25 July
26 July
27 July
28 July
29 July
30 July
31 July
1 August
2 August
3 August
4 August
5 August
6 August
7 August
8 August
9 August
10 August
11 August
12 August
13 August
14 August
15 August
16 August
17 August
18 August
19 August
20 August
21 August
22 August
23 August
24 August
25 August
26 August
27 August
28 August
29 August
30 August
31 August
1 September
2 September
3 September
4 September
5 September
6 September
7 September
8 September
9 September
10 September
11 September
12 September
13 September
14 September
15 September
16 September
17 September
18 September
19 September
20 September
21 September
22 September
23 September
24 September
25 September
26 September
27 September
28 September
29 September
30 September
1 October
2 October
3 October
4 October
5 October
6 October
7 October
8 October
9 October
10 October
11 October
12 October
13 October
14 October
15 October
16 October
17 October
18 October
19 October
20 October
21 October
22 October
23 October
24 October
25 October
26 October
27 October
28 October
29 October
30 October
31 October
1 November
2 November
3 November
4 November
5 November
6 November
7 November
8 November
9 November
10 November
11 November
12 November
13 November
14 November
15 November
16 November
17 November
18 November
19 November
20 November
21 November
22 November
23 November
24 November
25 November
26 November
27 November
28 November
29 November
30 November
1 December
2 December
3 December
4 December
5 December
6 December
7 December
8 December
9 December
10 December
11 December
12 December
13 December
14 December
15 December
16 December
17 December
18 December
19 December
20 December
21 December
22 December
23 December
24 December
25 December
26 December
27 December
28 December
29 December
30 December
31 December
Date Index
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
In amongst the unchanging, comforting bric-a-brac of the Register section of each edition of The Times nestles the record of anniversaries of events which fall “On This Day”. The feature has the feel of having been there for ever, alongside the royal engagements and what the weather has in store. Yet in fact, in terms of the newspaper’s two centuries and more of history, it is a relatively recent innovation, with this selection compiled from those entries which have appeared during the last decade or so.
They are not meant to represent a complete history of the world. Rather, they are a random, often quirky, frequently diverting list of things you feel better for knowing. That said, the collective mind that put them together seems to have had some idiosyncratic interests, including notable firsts in astronomy, key moments in Britain’s withdrawal from empire, and opera premieres. The broad-minded reader of The Times naturally takes all these in his or her stride. What can the rest of us learn from this midden heap of the past?
Perhaps it is that the past is just that. Rooting about in it disinters things which were once prized but are now of little account. Events which made headlines – “40 skaters drowned in Regent’s Park” – are long forgotten. How quickly things change, one might think (maybe contemplating an entry whilst adding to one’s own midden heap), a thought soon followed by: “Did that happen 20 years ago already?”
And then there are the secret harmonies one fancies hearing in time’s dance music. Can it be just coincidence that Sir Winston Churchill died on the same day of the year (January 24th) as not only his father but also Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of the Churchills’ family seat at Blenheim? That Rolls-Royce should commission its proud emblem Spirit of Ecstasy exactly 60 years to the day before declaring bankruptcy? What unseen force sent King Louis XVI to the guillotine on the anniversary of its inventor having proposed it as a humane method of execution?
Another newspaper – now itself passed into history – once claimed of its contents that “All human life is here”. That may not be precisely true of this selection, but it is good to be reminded of the breadth and diversity of mankind’s achievements. Sometimes one can even be surprised by them: Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 21; Sid Vicious rose to fame with the Sex Pistols when a year younger; the first public flushing lavatory for women opened in London as early as 1852.
So, read on and find your own path through the past, be it by lucky dip, joining the dots, using the date index at the back of the book or through dates that mean something to you. Discover something that prompts you to learn more, or to think “I never knew that!”, a fact to share with a friend and make you muse upon all that has gone before us down the ages: a glorious gallimaufry of happenings.
And then turn the page and read the Obituaries.
James Owen
1 JANUARY
1785 The Daily Universal Register was founded. It was renamed The Times on January 1, 1788.
•
1801 the Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland came into force.
•
1901 the Commonwealth of Australia was established, allowing the nation to govern itself.
•
1962 the Beatles were not signed by Decca Records because guitar groups were “on the way out”.
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1973 Britain entered the Common Market, later named the European Union.
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1999 the euro was introduced, giving 11 countries a shared currency — the first time since the Roman Empire that much of Europe had had one.
2 JANUARY
17 Roman poet Ovid died, a decade after mysteriously being banished to modern-day Romania by Emperor Augustus.
•
1769 the Royal Academy met for the first time, with Sir Joshua Reynolds as president.
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1896 Leander Starr Jameson surrendered after his raid failed to provoke an uprising by British workers against the Boers in the Transvaal.
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1959 the Russians launched the rocket Luna 1 on the first close fly-by mission to the moon.
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1971 66 football fans were killed in a crush at Ibrox Park, Glasgow.
•
1981 police arrested serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.
3 JANUARY
1521 the Pope excommunicated Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism.
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1892 JRR Tolkein, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was born.
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1924 Howard Carter discovered the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.
•
1946 William Joyce (better known as Lord Haw-Haw), broadcaster of Nazi propaganda, hanged.
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1980 Joy Adamson, wildlife conservationist and author of Born Free, was murdered.
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1981 Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, the last survivor of Queen Victoria’s 37 grandchildren, died aged 97.
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1990 Panama’s leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to US forces after ten days under siege in the Vatican Embassy.
4 JANUARY
1642 King Charles I entered Parliament with soldiers in a bid to arrest five MPs, sparking the English Civil War.
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1643 Sir Isaac Newton, physicist and mathematician, was born.
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1877 Cornelius Vanderbilt, financier and transport magnate whose steamship service flourished with the 1849 Gold Rush, died.
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1948 after more than 100 years of British rule, Burma became an independent republic.
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1951 Chinese Communist and North Korean troops captured Seoul during the Korean War.
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1967 world speed record breaker Donald Campbell was killed in Bluebird on Coniston Water, Cumbria, during a record attempt.
5 JANUARY
1066 Edward the Confessor, King of England since 1042, died.
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1592 Shah Jahan, Mogul emperor of India, who ordered the building of the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his wife, was born.
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1855 King Camp Gillette, inventor of his eponymous safety razor, was born in Wisconsin.
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1941 Amy Johnson, record-breaking aviator, died after her aircraft crashed in the Thames estuary.
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1968 Alexander Dubcek became First Secretary of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party, ushering in the Prague Spring.
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1971 international one-day cricket was born when England played Australia in Melbourne, the Test match having been abandoned due to rain.
6 JANUARY
1066 Harold Godwinson was crowned King of England in succession to Edward the Confessor, prompting the Normans to invade.
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1412 St Joan of Arc, French heroine, was born into a peasant family at Domrémy, (later called Domrémy-la-Pucelle) in the Vosges.
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1681 the first recorded boxing match in the UK was arranged by the Duke of Albemarle between his butler and his butcher.
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1838 in New Jersey, Samuel Morse gave the first public demonstration of his electric telegraph system.
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1852 Louis Braille, who invented a reading and writing system for blind people, died in Paris.
7 JANUARY
1714 a patent was granted to the English engineer Henry Mill for his typewriter design.
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1785 Blanchard and Jeffries made the first hot-air balloon crossing of the Channel.
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1789 the first nationwide election was held in America, with George Washington elected as president.
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1827 Sandford Fleming, Scottish engineer who divided the world into time zones, was born.
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1955 Marian Anderson was placed under contract by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the first African-American to be so engaged.
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1999 the impeachment trial of President Clinton began in Washington.
8 JANUARY
1337 Giotto, painter and architect, died in Florence.
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1642 Galileo Galilei, mathematician and astronomer, died in Arcetri, Tuscany.
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1742 Philip Astley, founder of Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, a forerunner of the modern circus, was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
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1824 Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White, was born.
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1897 Dennis Wheatley, historical novelist and thriller writer (The Devil Rides Out), was born.
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1935 Elvis Presley, singer, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
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1940 wartime rationing of butter, bacon and sugar began in the UK.
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1959 Charles de Gaulle was proclaimed president of the French Republic.
9 JANUARY
1799 income tax was introduced by prime minister William Pitt the Younger to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.
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1806 Horatio Nelson was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral.
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1816 Sir Humphry Davy’s safety lamp was first used in a mine.
•
1873 Napoleon III, French Emperor, died in exile in England.
•
1913 Richard Nixon, president of the United States 1969–74, was born in Yorba Linda, California.
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1960 work began on the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and would take ten years to complete.
•
1972 the liner Queen Elizabeth was destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbour.
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